Trouble
by bluelightning42
Summary: Call and Tamara try to fuse.
1. Trouble

Call dipped his bare feet into the cool water. Summer vacation had just started and Tamara had offered to have both him and Aaron over for the week.

Their copper year had been fairly uneventful, the stuff they learned was interesting though. Call thought about a previous lecture they had just before break. Some of the older students had shown how to blend things together to create something new with earth magic. Like a pear that tastes like cheese, or a rose that smelled like lavendar.

Call had almost asked if anyone had ever tried to combine two humans before, but then he thought about having two heads, or four arms and ended up creeping himself out.  
He and Tamara were currently relaxing by the pool waiting for Aaron to arrive.  
He'd been playing with Havoc while Tamara did a few laps, but then Havoc had left him and wandered into the house to escape the hot sun.

"What's wrong? Come on in, I promise not to splash you. Much."

Call shrugged, "I was just thinking."

"About what?" Tamara asked, now curious.

"About our last class, the one where the older students talked about blending the different elements and combining items.

"Yeah? What about it?You want to put an apple and an orange together?"

Call hesitated, "Actually I was thinking of something a bit more difficult." He rushed on not wanting to lose his nerve. "I was thinking, what if you could combine people? You'd get twice the magic, and their experience and everything. Like... like a fusion of two people. Y'know from that cartoon?"

Tamara was thoughtful for a minute. Call fidgeted. Was his idea too creepy? Combining food items was one thing, people were another. Experimenting with people was dangerous. Call had heard horror stores at school that the older students liked to tell of people getting stuck in rock walls, or losing a hand or a foot. And hadn't Constantine been into human experimentation? Call didn't want to be anything like that. Maybe this was a terrible idea, maybe...

Tamara cut into his thoughts, "Let's do it," she decided.

"What?"

"Let me dry off and think for a while, the principles are all pretty much the same. Blending things together is earth magic, but since it's us we're blending together I'm not sure what to focus our magic on."

"Well if we're using earth magic how about some rocks?" Call felt stupid for suggesting it, he really had no idea what to use for a focus.

Tamara looked at him slyly, "like on a certain TV show we both watch?"

Call shrugged, smiling.

"That's actually a good idea, we can use gemstones as focus points. I'm pretty sure my parents have some." She lifted herself out of the pool and grabbed a towl. "I'll be right back." She went into the house and soon returned with a ring and a bracelet both with blue stones in them.

"Are these sapphires?" Call asked.

"Not sure. Maybe. Anyway, stand closer to me." Tamara grasped his hand and put the bracelet on him. It was a chain of silver leaves with small gemstones between each one. she had the ring which was a simple band with a mounted stone.

"Now what?" Call asked. "The stones focus the magic but where should we spread it to?"

Tamara chewed her lip for a moment. "Let's try our hands first, that way if something goes wrong we can easily undo it."

Call started to feel queasy at the words 'something goes wrong', he pulled his hand away. "Uh... Tamara, maybe this isn't such a good idea."

"We'll be fine, don't worry! If you feel like something is going wrong just use air magic to break the binding."

Call took a deep breath, "Okay, I'm ready," he nervously took her hand.  
They both focused on the gemstones trying to use earth magic to push them together. Call kept getting distracted, he'd never held hands with anyone except his dad when he was little. His cheeks grew warm. Tamara's hand was soft, and her hair was still damp and smelled of chlorine from the pool. He wondered what it'd be like as an amalgam with her? Would he forget he was Call? Would he be able to know what Tamara was thinking? Would it be anything like on TV?

"Nothing's happening!" Tamara said, frustrated.

"Maybe we should dance?" Call jokingly asked.

Tamara rolled her eyes, "Are you sure you're concentrating?"

"Yeah, maybe it's just not possible to fuse two people together?"

Tamara looked disappointed, "I guess," she sighed. "Mabye it's for the best, we could really mess this up if we're not careful." Call felt a twinge of guilt, he hadn't really been focusing on binding their gems together, and Tamara seemed like she really wanted it to work. It had been his idea after all, he should have tried harder.

He took a deep breath, "Let's try it one more time. I wasn't as focused as I could have been." Tamara grunted and sat down on a chair by the pool, drying her braids down with a towl. Her enthusiasm was somewhat depleted. "Maybe we can try it differently this time," he continued. "Like...instead of starting with the jewelry we start with ourselves and then focus the binding onto the stones. Make sense?"

"I guess..." she said slowly, still unwilling to give up on the idea. Nodding once she stood up, "okay we'll give it one more try before Aaron gets here." She dropped the towel, "You want to try dancing this time?"

"What?"

"I think your suggestion was actually good, dancing does involve patterns and timing and stuff like magic does," she explained. "Maybe if we coordinate the two we can make a solid binding?" She walked over to her speaker dock they'd been listening to earlier. Tamara had tons of playlists, and most of them Call had discovered, were either in Japanese or Korean. She picked a song that had a steady calm beat.

"You just want to see me embarrass myself by trying to dance," Call accused.

Tamara smirked and grabbed his hand. He stumbled forward as she pulled him along and he felt his face grow hot again when she put her hand on his back. Call thought about the cartoon they both watched while they danced. The characters had merged and formed into something different when they danced together maybe the same could happen for him and Tamara? Call could feel the bracelet growing warm on his arm.  
'Maybe this will actually work!' He thought and grinned as Tamara picked him up and twirled him around. Then he blacked out.


	2. It Takes Two

She woke up face down on the pavement, her head feeling very warm. "Ow, that was weird, did it work or-" she stopped and stared at her long legs and blue shorts.

"Oh my god!" She squealed, "I did it, Tamara! Er...Call. Us. Wow, this is confusing!"  
What was it that Master Rufus had said at the beginning of the term? That the two of them put together were trouble?  
"Yeah!" She stood up quickly and began to wobble. "Here comes Trouble! Whoah!" she slipped and fell into the pool with a splash. Trouble came up spluttering, wet hair clinging to her face. "Okay, this will take some getting used to."

Trouble flailed around for another minute trying to get used to walking. She went back down on her knees and stared at her reflection in the pool. She had long brown hair that was now wet and falling out of her braid. Her skin was a dark tan, one of her eyes was grey, and the other was brown.  
"And I only have two arms and two legs!" She said cheerfully.  
"Wait! You thought you'd have more than two?" Tamara asked.  
"Well, yeah." Call responded. "Maybe, if something went wrong. But it didn't!"  
She tried standing up again. Her legs wobbled a little and she put out her arms to steady herself. "Okay, so far so good." She took a hesitant step, then another.  
Trouble giggled, "It doesn't hurt when I walk!"

Her smile faded, "It hurts to walk?"

Call was silent.

"Call? Do you want to stop?"

"No, I'm fine. Just keep going."

"Okay, if you're sure."

Trouble wandered around on the grass for a while getting a feel for her new body.  
She wiggled her toes and hopped around a bit. Laughing, Trouble started to walk faster and began running across the grass, gaining confidence.

"This is great! Woohoo!" She yelled, and ran to the edge of the lawn and back. "I've never moved so fast before!" Trouble used a bit of air magic to get off the ground and spun around. Then she lost concentration and fell onto the grass giggling.

"Tamara! Call!" Aaron's voice echoed across the yard.

Trouble sat up straight, her eyes wide. "Aaron's here! We have to show him!"

"Wait! What if he doesn't like it?!"

"Oh come on, it's Aaron! Of course he'll like us. He's our friend when we're separate, why not when we're together?"

Call didn't respond to that and Trouble cheerfully strolled towards the front of the yard.

"Hey! Where are you two!?" Aaron had a backpack slung over his shoulder, his hair had grown out since last year and was now hanging in his eyes.

Arron saw a girl approach he didn't recognize her. He had thought at first that it might be Kimiya, but she was really tall and wearing a strange combination of lavendar bathing suit and navy blue shorts. "Hi! I'm Aaron, are Call and Tamara..." he stopped when she got closer. The girl had partially braided hair, one brown eye, and the other grey.

Trouble held up her hands. "Aaron, please don't freak out."

Aaron's eyes went wide, "Oh my god!"

"Aaron..."

"Oh my god! What did you two do?!" Aaron ran his hands through his hair. "Did you two fuse?! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to make an amalgam?!"

Trouble hugged him, "We're fine, Aaron. Look! It worked!" She stepped back and twirled around. "Isn't this awesome? I managed to fuse with Tamara! I mean Call. Us. Together. It's a little confusing."

"Can you unfuse?"

Trouble stopped twirling. "Umm..."

"You decided this was a good idea without knowing if you could separate?! What if you're stuck like this forever?!" Aaron was definitely freaking out.

"Umm... we'll never get lonely?" Trouble suggested timidly. She toed the ground shly, seeing that Aaron wasn't that happy about it.

"Okay," Aarond dropped his backpack. "You stay here while I go find Tamara's mom."

"No!" Trouble grabbed his arm. "Aaron, it's fine, we can unfuse without help. Really."

"Then do it," Aaron challenged, looking upset. "Before you become permanetly stuck together.

They hesitated, "We don't want to. Not yet."

"Why not?" Aaron asked.

"We just fused together a few minutes ago, let's have some fun first!"

"You can have fun when separated."

"It's not the same," Trouble argued, although she was looking a bit uncertain now.

"Do both of you want to stay together? Or is it just Call?"

Trouble sat on the ground and didn't look at him.

He dropped his backpack, sat down next to them, and took a deep breath, "Call?"

Trouble looked up, a tear trickled out of her grey eye.

"We're not going to leave you, okay?" He put a hand on Trouble's shoulder. "Tamara and I are here for you. You won't be alone."

Trouble slowly unfused, first as a blurry mass, then as two people sitting on the ground. Both Call and Tamara looked sad. Aaron reached over and hugged Call who was still crying.

"We can always fuse again, Call." Tamara comforted him. "Now that we've done it once I'm pretty sure we can figure out how to do it again."

"Yeah," Call sniffed and wiped his face. "Just put on some k-pop songs and swing me around. We'll make an amalgam no problem." They all laughed.

"It was pretty cool that you two managed to fuse though," Aaron said.

"We were pretty cool weren't we?" Tamara grinned.

"We were awesome!" Call agreed.

Aaron looked thoughtful, "Do you think one of you would be able to fuse with me?"


End file.
